


For what it's worth

by InsaneJul



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Heavy Angst, M/M, Memories, Old Love, Self-Hatred, Sociopathy, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 20:12:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8503762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneJul/pseuds/InsaneJul
Summary: He remembers everything...but in a very different way, he remembers nothing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I got a prompt to write something Reaper76 and it turned into a Reaper character study? Because I love Gabe and I love the idea of him being a happy, loving guy when he was alive. This one is gonna hurt, if you love him too.

What’s the meaning of memories if they don’t make you feel anything?

            He didn’t even miss feeling, most of the time. He couldn’t remember what it was like. The last thing he remembered feeling was desperation; the desire to die. But then he didn’t, and all he can be is angry.

            Sometimes memories hit him when he’s calm, introspective, and he can’t help but wonder what he felt when it was happening. He remembers his face: dark brown eyes, goatee, heavy eyebrows, and a wide nose, typically dark skin (he was darker than his mother, who used to tease him about it). He remembers using it to smile, something he doesn’t do anymore—not even endorphins can do anything for him. He could try, but he probably won't.

            He remembers the sound of his name coming from others’ lips—a name he doesn’t go by anymore, he can’t go by anymore, because he has at least enough memories (or maybe even memories of the way he was) to know he isn’t that man anymore. All he can be is angry, and as far as he can tell, he wasn’t before. Not this often. Not this intensely. “Gabriel,” murmured Angela, as she tended to his wounds, kind and pretty, always a bright presence. “Gabe,” Jack would sigh, in pleasure and annoyance, sometimes both. “Gabriel!” Reinhardt shouted jovially. “Gabriel,” Ana said, somehow both warm and curt. “Gabe?” Jesse questioned, asking for approval, for love, for confirmation that he had done right.

            It’s Jack and Jesse that make him the angriest—only because he cannot remember what he felt for them and they so _clearly do_ —and he wishes they were gone simply so he would no longer be tortured trying to remember what it was like to love.

            He has no doubt in his mind he loved Jack, once: there are too many memories of kissing, touching the blonde hero of Overwatch, his hero, then. He remembers admiring him, for everything he was: brave, kind, strong, and so handsome, it seemed impossible. He sometimes thinks he’s remembering Jack wrong, especially when he sees him now, scarred and white-haired. Jack couldn’t have been as wonderful as his perceptions, not when he is brought so low—but then so has he—but then he doesn’t know how far he’s fallen, because he barely knows what he used to be, who he used to be, only that he was so much different.

            And _Jesse_. The name makes something in him twinge but for the life of him he doesn’t know what it is. Every time he is in Santa Fe he thinks of the teenager, battered and broken, that he picked up and claimed for his own. He cannot help but hate Jesse—hate him, because that is all he can feel for him. He cannot be sure, but he thinks of every moment he shared with the kid—every comforting touch, every reassuring smile, every offer of help, every minute spent in the training room together—and he thinks he must have loved him. Loved him differently—vastly so—from the way he loved Jack, but it seems clear. And McCree’s hate of him in return seems only to confirm the suspicions he had about their relationship. _He couldn’t hate me if he never once loved me, not after everything—or he loved_ him _, as it seems._

So he hates them. It is easy to justify hating Angela, after everything she did. After all, it’s because of her he’s a monster, it’s because of her that he cannot remember who he used to be, only what he did; it’s because of her that he can’t sleep asking himself if he really used to love anyone or smile or laugh. Sometimes it takes all he has to stop himself from grabbing Jack and cornering him somewhere private and just _asking—_ just because he has to _know—_ what his own smile looked like. What his laugh sounded like. If he ever really believed that Gabriel loved him. He hopes, for some dark reason, that he did.

            It is a little harder to justify hating Jack, but then he was brought back from the dead just like him and stayed…stayed whatever he is. _Or at least, he didn’t become what_ I _became,_ he thinks. Envy is a common instigator of hate, and he takes that and runs with it, hates Jack now with his whole being because he isn’t a monster. He hates Jack because he cannot stand to love him anymore, not while knowing that he turned out all right, not while knowing Angela cared about him more.

            With Jesse, it is only inside his head that his hatred makes sense. And he _hates_ Jesse, more than Jack or even Angela, even though the kid never did anything to him. He _has_ to hate him—it’s the only way to honor the fact that he used to love him. If he can’t feel anything but hate, he might as well use it. He’d never tell the damn cowboy-obsessed ingrate, but the hatred for him was one of the only things keeping him going.

            He knows that he will find them eventually, and he will kill them—there is no doubt in his mind that he could, he would—but not for the reason they surmise, if they even have any idea why he’s doing this. He has to destroy Overwatch for what they did to him, that much is true. That anger is almost all he has—but he has one more thing. He has memories: the almost-knowledge of what he used to be, used to feel; and the only thing he can do is rage against them and destroy all traces of them so he can finally be free. He can be free of the pain and free of the memories’ power and free of the constant _wondering,_ free of the _not knowing…_

            All he wants is to be free.


End file.
